The number one reason for Griffin not winning - and notice it’s not written Jackson winning or even Griffin losing - is that “you have to beat the champ”, a quote from Jackson’s coach Juanito Ibarra, some fighters, and even readers of this site. The concept is well understood, but scoring systems don’t change for championship fights and champions don’t get awarded bonus points (although we’ve all seen some fights where it seemed like they were). The UFC does increase the number of rounds for a title fight, but that’s the lone rules change, and no scoring changes come along with that. Dave Meltzer of Yahoo! Sports has similar thoughts.

Payouts

Griffin’s win made him the highest paid fighter of the night according to MMA Weekly. The $150k win bonus helped him top former champ Rampage. The two also were awarded fight of the night bonuses of $60k. The third highest paid fighter wasn’t even on the main card. Gabriel Gonzaga, who defeated Justin McCully on the preliminary card, received $100k with the win bonus.